The matter was brought to our attention by a reader. In an email to the editorial office, he wrote:

I would like to ask for help in publicizing the matter concerning our blood donation center on Zwycięstwa Street, because it is supposed to be closed from January!!! I wanted to [mail otrzymaliśmy 4 października – przyp. red.] donate blood today, but unfortunately there was no doctor, and the woman at the center gave me this shocking news. I am 25 years old and over the past 7 years I have donated 16 liters of this precious fluid. I went regularly (you cannot donate more often than every 2 months). And now all of this will come to an end.

The nearest center is probably in Lwówek. What a joke, that's all I can say. I don't know what else to say about it. I know that there are many donors in Bolesławiec. More than once I witnessed the women working there reluctantly [...] turning willing donors away until the following days. I don't know about others, but I certainly will not travel just to donate blood. I know the life-saving value of this fluid. So many people want to donate it selflessly. But at the moment, nothing encourages us to do so. This isn't about those 8 chocolate bars! They're closing the center! WHAT A JOKE! WHAT A JOKE! WHAT A JOKE!!!

We contacted Piotr Popławski, director of medical services at the Regional Blood Donation and Blood Treatment Center in Wałbrzych. “This is not about closure, but restructuring,” Popławski emphasizes. “As part of the self-sufficiency program, our task is to increase blood collection. In this respect, the current year is disastrous. These are no longer the times when you can sit behind a desk and wait for blood donors to come. Now we have to go out to the people.”

The Regional Blood Donation and Blood Treatment Center is focusing on mobility. “We will travel to Raciborowice and other towns. We are in contact with PCK presidents, parish priests and village heads. We are looking for new places where we could organize blood drives,” the director lists. “All this so that blood donors do not have to make a special trip to Bolesławiec.”

As Popławski points out, these efforts are already producing results in other counties. “Everywhere we introduce such a system, we record an increase in blood collection of around a dozen or several dozen percent over the course of a month,” he says. “Today, 11 people came to the center [z Piotrem Popławskim rozmawialiśmy we wtorek, 5 października – przyp. red.]. When we organize a blood drive, 80 people come. Sometimes, in one day, we can collect enough blood for 200–300 patients.”

The director hopes that the Regional Blood Donation and Blood Treatment Center will succeed in promoting this vision throughout Bolesławiec County. “We want to double blood collection here. I hope that, through cooperation with local leaders, we will manage to do so.”

The center will operate until the end of the year

Until the end of this year, the Bolesławiec blood donation center will operate on Tuesdays and Fridays. “I would like it to operate on the same basis in 2011 as well,” Piotr Popławski notes. “However, everything depends on our staffing and financial capabilities.”

We will return to the matter.

(information ii)